There goes our trainee. With us for six months, but never learnt some of the simplest of things. It's a shame, he really did have so much potential, but it just went to waste.
I got on better with him personally than anyone else in the company, and I have also worked directly with him more than anyone else. But in the end, I tried to help him as much as I could, and always said if he wasn't sure about anything or had any problems that he should speak to me, but unfortunately, he just never really thought about what he was doing.
My bosses had been teetering on the verge of whether to extend his probationary period or to say goodbye to him all day. I found out the decision at 4:30.
At 5:15, he finished working on a low priority "research" project for me. I thought it was quite clever, and perhaps might stand him a chance of tipping the balance back the other way if he showed it off. (There have been many occasions even today of him saying "Right, finished!", then someone spending two minutes checking and coming up with a list of things still to do)
It was only a simple sample of something, but I told him to go show it to my boss. "Make a note of the information you need to show the sample and take it with you", I said. He didn't take a note. He couldn't remember the information. He couldn't demonstrate the sample because he hadn't jotted down a simple 6-digit number.
So clever, so stupid.
It's such a shame.
I always try to help our, er, "less gifted" employees, although of those that have been and gone, he had the greatest potential, and also reminded me a lot of myself.
This is also the most influence I've ever had before over whether someone stays or goes (it wasn't directly my decision, but I believe that if I'd have said I felt things should go the other way, I think that they would have). In the end, I was honest, and it was the way things had to be.
Oh well. Life goes on.
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you aint doing him no favours babysitting him guy, i rekon you did the right thing.
ReplyDeletei dont get any spam???
I know. It's just that he's the only person I've seen here who could come close to truely rivalling me in a lot of areas.
ReplyDeleteI think you only get spam if you allow anonymous comments.
And it's only fair for me to allow anonymous comments if I write anonymously myself ;)
It must be very difficult in that situation, but as Hanni said, in the long run you wouldn't be helping him by babying him. How would he learn? We all need to screw things up in order to learn from them -it's just hard for the people watching us!
ReplyDeleteMm, no, I was't quite suggesting babysitting. A very (very) important part of the job is to ask questions if you don't understand something. It's a waste of time if you just go off and do the wrong thing.
ReplyDeleteIt was the taking advice and listening part he had problems with. (Even when following instructions in an e-mail)
I think the reason this was awkward me was...
I am good at my job. Actually, I am very good. I'm not just blowing my own trumpet here ;) It's something I've come to realise. There's a lot of things that I'm not good at (or even, am particularly poor at), but when it comes to my job, I excel.
There are a lot of good and intelligent people at my company, but I am the only one with such a natural talent.
This trainee is the only other person I have worked with who had some of that too. He impressed me sometimes with the speed he could do some things, and the speed at which he could expand his knowledge into new areas.
That's why it's such a shame that he couldn't get the simple things right.